Dave's shared items
Filed under: Utilities, Windows
If you have Windows set to extend your desktop, your mouse moves instantly from one screen to the next. That can be bothersome when a program's controls (like a scrollbar) are near the edge of your display. Move a fraction of an inch too far, and you're mouse jumps to your secondary desktop.
Dual Display Mouse Manager offers a solution. Once installed, it creates a no-jump zone which prevents your mouse from leaving one display prematurely. It's like a weak force field -- you can still break out and get your mouse onto your other display, you just have to keep moving. The momentary pause provided by DDMM makes landing your pointer on those controls much easier.
DDMM is packaged as a .zip file and it's mostly portable -- .Net is required to use it, but you've got that already if you're using Vista or Windows 7.
Clever app keeps your mouse from jumping between monitors too quickly on dual-display setups originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Utilities, Windows
Double Driver offers an excellent way to avoid driver download headaches: it painlessly backs up and restores your drivers with no more effort than it takes to check a few boxes and click a button. It's an excellent post-install app to add to your toolbox: fire up Double Driver, start a restore, and within minutes, you'll have done away with all of those annoying exclamation marks in Device Manager.
Version 4.0 is faster than previous releases, and it's also added a command line interface. With the CLI, I've now got a simple batch script that I can use to quickly back up drivers with a double-click. Double Driver has a few other tricks up its sleeve, too, like the ability to remotely back up the drivers from other systems on your network.
Double Driver is a free download, it's totally portable, and it runs on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 -- both 32 and 64-bit versions.
Double Driver 4.0 is an even better driver backup and restore app for Windows originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 16 Apr 2010 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Windows, Troubleshooting
Their new Fix It Center is a program you can download for free which provides automatic fixes for a wide range of bugs and annoyances. Choose the issue you need to fix, click run, and follow the prompts. The step-by-step instructions are very easy to understand -- even for your less-technical family and friends who typically rely on your expertise to correct these kinds of problems.
Loads of common errors can be fixed -- from broken Aero transparency to network adapter glitches to Windows Media Player library and DVD issues. There's even a system maintenance option which checks for broken shortcuts, date and time problems, disk volume errors, and more!
Once this baby is finalized, I'm pretty sure I'll be installing it on every system which lands on my workbench. Hey, if it means I can get my coworkers to tell customers 'run FixIt Center and click [...]' instead of doing a step-by-step walkthrough, it's worth it!
Fix It Center is a free download from Microsoft. It's a test release right now, but I didn't experience any crashes or strange behavior while testing.
As with other automated fix tools, I strongly recommend creating system restore points prior to running any of the repairs.
[via Into Windows]
Microsoft FixIt Center beta fixes Windows 7 and Vista errors automatically originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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NetApp yesterday released System Manager 1.1, now supporting V-Series, large aggregates (over 16 TB), and quota management.System Manager has been qual'd to run on Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, as well as Windows Server 2008 and Server 2003, with .NET Framework 2.0 and above. Installer weighs in at 5.79 MB, download available via NOW site.
Filed under: Mozilla, Browsers
Here's what it does. When you click on a link you've chosen to open in a new tab, Firefox normally loads the page content immediately. BarTap keeps an eye on these actions, and intervenes when it sees a new tab appear. It prevents Firefox from loading any content until you actually click over to the tab -- saving resources you might rather allocate to tabs you're actively using.
It even works after a browser restart, and it can make quite a difference in how quickly Firefox launches depending on how many background tabs you have waiting to load.
One more bonus: since they're not loading, those music and video players you have opened on tab 34 won't automatically kick in and blast something embarrassing out your speakers. Win!
BarTap for Firefox keeps background tabs from loading until you use them originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google has extended it’s support for Exchange Activesync enabled devices. Those devices include iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile devices.
Google Apps Premier and Education customers will be able to manage their employees mobile devices right from the Google Apps administrative control panel.
Administrators will now have the ability to:
* Remotely wipe all data from lost or stolen mobile devices
* Lock idle devices after a period of inactivity
* Require device passwords on each phone
* Set minimum lengths for more secure passwords
* Require passwords to include letters, numbers and punctuation
You can get more details HERE
It's not Courier, but HP's rumored slate PC is here, now. Steve Ballmer and his hardware specialist Ryan Asdourian just showed it off, and man is it cute. Updated with VIDEO
Update:Adrian just spotted this official video:
"They're more powerful than a phone and almost as powerful as a PC. Perfect for reading, surfing the web and taking entertainment on the go," said Ballmer at his CES 2010 opening keynote. He says that it will be available this year.
HP says they'll provide information on the slate after the keynote, but wouldn't say anything in the meantime. We're calling it a "slate"—well, Microsoft is calling it a slate, to differentiate from the pen-and-screen dealy that Bill Gates intro'd in 2001—but that's not its name.
It's a Windows 7 touch device, so it's nice in an accessible, netbooky (yeah, I'm guessing relatively cheap) context. But it's not exactly the Courier we have lusted after from Microsoft in our dreams (and waking hours).
Here you can see it in its various modes, movie mode, ebook mode and PC mode:
Fun fact: Asdourian, shown above with Ballmer, moonlights as a (or the) Seahawks mascot.
